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Solar PV could provide 30% of power needs by 2030, ARENA says

Solar PV could provide 30% of power needs by 2030, ARENA says

Frischknecht said Australia was on the path to an “affordable and reliable” renewable energy grid, thoughts echoed by the new CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator, Audrey Zibelman, who repeated her assessment that Australia was at the forefront of the global energy transition.

“The future of energy industry going to look a lot like other industries that have been transformed,” Zibelman said. “It will need to be flexible and adaptable. It is not going to happen in decades, it is going to happen in a matter of years …. and maybe even shorter for some technologies.

“This is the best time ever to be in this industry. It’s the most exciting time. If you look at the changes from 1980-2005 and compare to what has happened since, it is just breathtaking. And it is getting faster.”

The pace of the change was underlined last week by the latest report by the CSIRO and the network owners, Energy Networks Australia, who said that households would be at the centre of a 100 per cent renewable energy grid that could be built within Australia before 2050, and deliver huge savings to consumers.

Zibelman agrees that consumers will be the focus of the new energy system. “We need to think about the power system differently. We need to think about developing the 21st Century grid from the customer out, rather than cstomer in.”